How Do You Know What My Case Is Worth?Daniel Packard discusses how we determine what your case is worth

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT MY CASE IS WORTH?

"Every client that walks into my office wants to know how are you going to figure out what my case is worth. And there are many factors that weigh into the value of a case, but there are three main ones.

*And the first one is: how likely am I to win the case? And that seems so obvious, but not all cases have the same facts. For example, you may be involved in a collision in an intersection where both sides claim that they had the green light. In that case, you might find yourself in a “he said/she said” situation and you maybe have a fifty percent chance of winning the case. And so the insurance company will actually discount the value of your case by fifty percent, to account for the risk that you might not win anything, if you don’t settle the case and go to trial. So the strength of your case will determine how able you are to collect all of your damages.

*The second factor is: how serious were my injuries? The more medical care that you receive, whether or not you receive surgery, whether or not you had to take extended time off work - all those are major factors in determining how large your case is.

*And, finally, is the defendant able to pay the damages that you’ve sustained? Sometimes you have a case that is slam dunk in terms of who’s at fault. You have very major serious injuries, but the other person doesn’t have any money and they only have a minimum $30,000 insurance policy and, once the insurance policy is exhausted, there is nothing left to get. Other times you… someone is injured by a commercial driver or a large company that has enough money to fully pay the damages that you’ve sustained, so the ability of the defendant to pay sometimes really impacts the size of the case.

So the three factors are: how strong is my case, how serious are my injuries and how capable is the defendant of paying the judgment? If you have questions about this or you want to talk about your case, give me a call or contact me online and I’ll be glad to give you the attention that you need."